Character Review — Adger

Meet Adger, One of My Original Characters

Who is Adger?

The final of the four chief characters in Untrustworthy undergoes almost as many changes as Tathrelle does.

Where Did Adger Come From?

By the time I got to this character, I was getting tired of making up alien names. Hence, his name is just the word badger with the first letter off. Er, sorry, character!

The Past is Prologue — Backstory for Adger

Hired by Velexio and various generals to get their military dictatorship in power and then increase their power, no one counted on Adger catching feelings.

Description

Like all other Cabossian men, he’s bald and has three fingers on each hand. A fourth appendage on each hand is his two-part genitals. Otherwise, I have no real description of him, and no thoughts of anyone who I picture as ‘playing’ him.

Purpose/Theme/Motivation

As the world shifts around the characters, Adger’s own purposes begin to change. He goes from being a jerk (in the best description of him) to being more like a lovesick fool than anything else. But he is never a hero and he is never the kind of person who readers would or should root for.

However, at least, unlike Velexio, he has occasional positive-ish moments. But they are few and far between, and they are blink-and-you’ll-miss-them fast.

Quotes {Tathrelle and Adger meet for the first time and things do not go well…}

Adger … turned and smiled at her and bowed slightly. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Velexio said and departed.

Once Velexio was gone, Adger shut the door to the small room. He looked Tathrelle up and down. “You are very interesting,” he stated.

“How so?” Tathrelle’s tone was skeptical.

“And you even told the people to call you by your first name! Do you have any idea what sort of annoying attention that’s going to get you? Ah,” he shook his head, “you are clearly a rank amateur. Still, you are a bit promising, I think.” He came closer to her. “You are an attractive woman. A little rough around the edges, but that may be how and why you were elected in the first place. It seems the people have a certain type of taste in such matters, eh?”

“Taste?”

“Oh, do you honestly believe that you were elected due to your acumen or the like? You had numerous rivals, as I recall. Or have you yourself forgotten that small detail? You may have thought it was an insignificant detail, but, you see, it’s really not. So you were selected by the people, but they hardly knew anything about you – or about any of your rivals, I imagine. But they picked you because,” he came closer, “you have … something.”

“I wish I knew what you were talking about, Adger.”

“Do you not, though? It’s a somewhat earthy appeal, you see. I had not really considered it. I had discounted it, you see, but now that I’ve met you, I think they might’ve been onto something. Of course, you could stand to be better in many ways, but in the basic respects, you’ve got it down pat.”

Relationships

Tathrelle

While he doesn’t get off on the right foot with her initially, he starts trying to make up for it as the story goes on. In fact, considering the changes that he goes through, it is highly likely that the carefully calibrated changes have some collateral damage and are affecting him as well.

As a result, he goes from a sexually harassing lout to, eventually, a person who genuinely cares about Tathrelle. But he’s got a lot of very funny ways of showing it.

Velexio

As Adger’s boss, Velexio should be in charge of him and telling him what to do. And Adger should be listening! But instead, he marches to the beat of his own drum. His reckless actions compound the conflicts and issues in the story.

While Velexio and the generals are the main architects of the misery in the story, Adger is far from blameless. Very far from blameless.

Conflict and Turning Point

When the rioting starts, he is in the thick of it. And while I pattern the rioting after Kristallnacht, his involvement is a lot more like a different incident, the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. Considering that I wrote Untrustworthy long before 45 even ran for president, I’m a little nervous about being a bit of a prophetess.

But the changes which he goes through are, essentially, his own damned fault. The guy never knows when to quit, and he pays for it.

Continuity/Easter Eggs

Because there is virtually no continuity between Untrustworthy and anything else I have written, there are no real Easter eggs or the like which you can associate with this character.

Future Plans

I have no real future plans for him, although he may show up in the prequel.

Adger: Takeaways

Unlike Velexio, who is essentially purely evil for evil’s sake, Adger has some layers to him. But he never uses his talents or intelligence for anything beyond the most selfish of motives. And in the prequel, he’s even more of a willing participant.

Adger — the lackey who does the most damage so the powers that be don’t have to get their hands dirty.

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Want More of Adger and the Rest of Untrustworthy?

If Untrustworthy resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how an alien society devolves into fascism.

Character Reviews: Untrustworthy

• Character Review—Adger
† Character Review—Ixalla
• Character Review—Tathrelle
† a href=”https://janetgershen-siegel.com/character-review-velexio/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Character Review—Velexio
• Character Review—Student #17

Untrustworthy Universe
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